Meet Jeff Adkins of i9 Sports

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff Adkins.

Hi Jeff, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
In the Fall of 2008, my former wife had signed my son up to play flag football for the inaugural season of the i9 Sports franchise in Wake Forest. She told me she volunteered me to coach and I pumped the breaks, saying I didn’t have time for that kind of commitment, thinking that it was every evening type of thing for practices and games on the weekend.

She said “Don’t worry… it’s all on the weekend!” We showed up to the field and right away realized this was something different than what I had grown up with at parks and rec. The organization was spot on, customer service was high and people were having a great time! Around the third week of the season, I started asking questions to the director about the organization and started doing my own research, and found that the Southern Wake market was open to purchase.

Fast forward a few months. After doing my due diligence, we went down to the home office in Tampa for “discovery day” and liked what we saw and heard, we decided to purchase the territory in Jan 2009 and were able to start our first flag football season in the spring of that same year. We are going on our 13th year and just launched our 49th season of flag football! We offer five other sports offerings as well including soccer, basketball, volleyball, baseball, and lacrosse. This has been a wonderful journey and we have had the opportunity and blessings of meeting some wonderful families in the South Wake community.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting your own business always has some ups and downs! Anyone who tells you differently I don’t think is being honest. Finding fields and gym space in our area was one of the toughest things in the beginning because 1.) There’s a lot of competition for those things and plenty of programs to go around and 2.) It takes time to build relationships with venue owners so they see we are a professional organization that will treat their property and facilities as if they were our own.

Another thing was building trust and awareness on basically an unknown brand in this area and getting that momentum going to where it wasn’t all about the marketing dollars spent as much as it was word of mouth and repeat customers. All in all, those are normal things business owners deal with in my opinion… then came 2020!

That was a curveball we weren’t expecting. It took the legs out from beneath us for a while and it was touch and go for a few months on whether we would be able to stay open at all with all of the facilities shut down, which means no programs operating, and no revenue coming in, we dug our heels in and made some smart operational decisions that allowed us to weather the storm and come out on the other side.

I believe God was watching out for us through that with positive things seeming to come at the right time for us all throughout that trial. The pandemic and shutdown taught me, my wife Nicole, my business partner, Bill Sheridan, and his wife, Raven, a lot about our own fortitude and what we are capable of through difficulty and unknown situations.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I think our game plan states is the best!

The Game Plan:

With over three million registrations in communities across the country, i9 Sports® is the nation’s largest multi-sport provider focused solely on high-quality, community-based youth sports programs. We offer youth sports leagues, camps, and clinics for boys and girls (ages 3 and up) in today’s most popular sports such as flag football, soccer, basketball, baseball, volleyball, and ZIP Lacrosse™.

To achieve our mission of helping kids succeed in life through sports, i9 Sports provides a youth sports experience unlike any other, teaching the importance of good sportsmanship on the field and in life. We are committed to providing age-appropriate instruction, making sports fun for kids, and convenient for today’s busy families. To us, it’s “The Way Youth Sports Should Be.”

Personally, as a franchise owner, I believe in my team giving world-class customer service! That is what sets us apart from other youth organizations. Our team is trained that not only are the kids that play with us are our customers but the entire family. We want our i9 families to have a great experience at the fields/courts each weekend and to leave with a smile and be ready for next week.

That kind of feeling spreads and others end up wanting to know what makes us so different. It’s more than just sports to us… it’s about building lasting relationships.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
The Triangle area is a place where people are proud to live here. The best thing in my opinion is consistently being on the top places to live lists, our outstanding educational opportunities, the proximity to the coast and mountains, the local parks and greenway system, the thriving restaurant scene, our arts, and sports attractions, and even more. People who live here know this is the place to be and it just continues to grow and get better.

Things I could do without… the traffic that comes along with our growth!

Contact Info:

• Email: jeff.adkins@i9sports.com
• Website: www.i9sports.com
• Instagram: @i9sports212
• Facebook: @i9sportsIS212
• Twitter: @i9sports_212